Jim, is the Footie on the Telly?

I have a new favourite word. I've had a few of these over the years including; procrastinate, augment, big, fuck and wander.

These are all everyday words though - I at least knew how to pronounce them and there was little danger that I would forget them.

That's not the case with hypocoristicon (literally, "to use child-talk") meaning to give something a pet name (or, indeed, it may mean the pet name itself). I have only ever seen it written down so I have to guess at pronunciation and there is little chance that I'll be able to recall it in order to slip it into conversation!

In English this usually takes the form of adding a 'y' sound to the end of the first syllable of a longer word (such as 'telly' or 'footie' or 'Stevie') and is most often seen with first names. However there are some unusual hypocristicons too; like 'bess' for Elizabeth, 'Jim' for James, 'Jack' for John, etc.

The point is that, when I was younger, I wanted a pally, informal version of my name, but being called Mark makes that difficult. Some folk called me Marky, but I feel that this was more likely a reference to my acne ridden teenage skin than a friendly wee name.

So, to combine both, I've decided that my actual new favourite word is 'hypoie' which, I suppose, means something like: 'a bit like that which is under, only smaller' which as we all know is entirely without use as a unit of language and therefore meaningless.

Which sums up me-ness somewhat.